After nearly a dozen years in prison for raping a woman he didn’t know when he was 18, Steven Roger Johnson seemed to be building a new life.

He married Manya Johnson. They bought a home in St. Paul’s comfortable Como neighborhood and had a toddler son.

But on Monday, Jan. 7, Steven Johnson reportedly told a man named Nathan Schram that Manya Johnson had slipped in the shower and died, according to one of Schram’s neighbors.

“(Johnson) told him he cut her up, put her in bags and left her in the garage” of Schram’s White Bear Lake home, said the neighbor, who declined to be identified.

Johnson wanted Schram to rent him a portable storage unit so he could keep the body there for a longer period of time, the neighbor said he was told.

Steven Johnson and Schram served time that overlapped in the same state prisons, Schram for helping cover up a murder his birth mother committed. Police stressed that Schram is cooperating with police in the Manya Johnson case, and at this time in the investigation, there’s no indication he’s involved in the death of Manya Johnson, which they are calling a homicide.

Authorities haven’t detailed what happened to Manya Johnson, 32, who worked for Target Corp., but they have arrested Steven Johnson, 34, on suspicion of homicide.

The Johnsons’ 17-month-old son was in the family’s St. Paul home in the 1400 block of Sheldon Street when his mother was killed, said Sgt. Paul Paulos, St. Paul police spokesman. The boy was uninjured and is being cared for by someone else, Paulos said.

A missing person’s report was filed at the Johnsons’ home Monday. Then, about 3 p.m. Monday, Schram called police and reported the body of a homicide victim might be in his garage. Police discovered Manya Johnson’s body in the White Bear Lake garage and found Steven Johnson at the couple’s St. Paul home.

Schram was at work when Steven Johnson called, and Schram contacted police at once from his workplace to tell them about a body that might be in his garage, Schram’s neighbor said.

“They didn’t find it when they first looked,” the neighbor said. They eventually found the body tucked under a blanket, the neighbor said.

It wasn’t immediately known how Manya and Steven Johnson met or how long they’d been together, though they were married Sept. 20, 2009, according to marriage records.

Manya Johnson graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., in 2002 and earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Bethel University in 2009, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She was a manager in marketing operations at Target Corp. at the time of her death, the profile said. She’d done work for Target since 2003 and had been a communications consultant for the Mayo Clinic a year before that.

“Our thoughts and deep sympathies go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Manya Johnson who had been a Target team member since 2003,” Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said. “We are providing our team with resources and support during this difficult time.”

1996 RAPE CONVICTION

Steven Johnson had been convicted of aiding and abetting first-degree criminal-sexual conduct in 1996, when he was 18.

In 1996, Johnson and two men followed a woman, then 28, as she pulled into a Coon Rapids driveway. Johnson persuaded the woman to step back to his car to look at something, and he and another man forced her into the car, the woman said in an interview Tuesday. They drove her to Sand Creek Park, where Johnson showed her something he said was as a badge and then handcuffed her.

Johnson and another man raped the woman repeatedly, with Johnson saying he had a gun and threatening to kill her if she didn’t cooperate, the criminal complaint said.

Johnson drew twice the sentence recommended in guidelines based on aggravating factors, according to a Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion that upheld Johnson’s sentence.

The factors included restraint of the victim that resulted in injury, references to a weapon, “significant advance planning,” “particular cruelty by forcing the victim to be nude in 50-degree temperatures, and the length of the assault,” the opinion said.

The victim said Monday she was shocked to see news of Johnson’s arrest in the homicide but added, “I’m not surprised that this kind of behavior would come up again.” She knew Johnson was out of prison, though not that he had started a family. Hearing about the couple’s toddler made her feel sick, she said: “He’s going to be without parents. There’s an innocent victim there.”

As for what happened to her in 1996, the woman said Johnson “was the mastermind of the whole thing, the whole rape. … He was the one who scared me the most.” She said she learned in the court process that Johnson had a juvenile record.

The woman recalled that in her victim-impact statement in court she told the men involved, “You guys will get out of prison, but I’m sentenced for life. This will never go away for me.”

Johnson was released from prison Feb. 25, 2008, and is on supervised release until 2018.

He and Schram were both in the St. Cloud prison in 1996 and 1997, and the Lino Lakes prison from 2004 to 2008, according to state Department of Corrections records.

A neighbor said Schram’s small tan bungalow in the 2200 block of Eighth Street was cordoned off by law enforcement for about six hours Monday, their efforts focused on the property’s two-stall detached garage.

Schram, also known as Nathan Lattu, is on supervised release for aiding and abetting a 1995 Minneapolis murder. Schram’s mother shot her husband to death while he slept, and Schram and his mom planted a phony revenge note and ransacked the house to make it look as though the man had been killed by an intruder. Schram couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.

AT HOME IN ST. PAUL

The Johnsons bought their home, a block from Como Park, in April 2010, according to property records. Steven Johnson was a registered sex offender and neighbors were concerned at first, said Cherste Eidman, who lives in the area. “My husband and I, we put a card in their (the Johnsons’) mailbox that said, ‘We know about your past, but we believe in second chances and it sounds like you’ve done your time. We welcome you to the neighborhood,’ ” Eidman said. “That night, Manya and Steve showed up at our doorstep, holding the card and almost in tears. They said, ‘Thank you, thank you for reaching out to us.’ ”

They talked for about an hour and a half that night, Eidman remembered. “He looked like a choirboy,” she said. “He didn’t look his age, he looked like a kid.”

Steven Johnson offered no details about his crime but said that he regretted it, that he had turned his life around and that he and his wife wanted to start a family, Eidman said.

Eidman said she and her husband encouraged the Johnsons to write a letter to neighbors, saying they wanted to be part of the community and they hoped people would accept them. They did, and most neighbors seemed to accept them after that, she said.

“Manya was a beautiful person, and if she accepted him, why couldn’t we?” Eidman said.

After the Johnsons had their son in August 2011, neighbors fell in love with the little boy and “forgave or got past Steve’s past,” Eidman said.

Eidman last saw the Johnson family before the snow fell.

“Steve had his son on his shoulders, he and Manya were holding hands, and they were smiling and happy,” she said. “I never, ever would have guessed there was anything wrong or it would have ever come to this.”

CHARGES PENDING

Steven Johnson remains in the Ramsey County Jail. Prosecutors are reviewing the case for charges, which could be filed Wednesday.

Eidman and her husband saw police cars in the alley behind the Johnson home Monday night. Eidman’s husband figured the Johnson’s garage had been broken into, not believing anything more sinister, Eidman said.

Eidman first heard Tuesday afternoon that Manya Johnson was missing and then learned that she’d been killed. She said she and other neighbors are shaken by the homicide and the circumstances around it.

Mara Gottfried has been a Pioneer Press reporter since 2001, mostly covering public safety. Gottfried lived in St. Paul as a young child and returned to the Twin Cities after graduating from the University of Maryland. You can reach her at 651-228-5262.

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